Many lessons learned.
Wisdom ready to share.
All of our startups have experienced accelerated organic growth, with a few making the INC 5000 list of fastest growing business in the United States. Smart ideas, clear value proposition, and savvy messaging led to uplift and success with each business.
Startups We Sold
Startups We Retired
2010-2022. WriterAccess quickly grew from zero to 40,000+ customers and $12 million in revenue in just 10 years—all bootstrapped without a smidge of VC funding. The company made the INC 5000 list for 9 years in a row, acquired by
Rock Content in December of 2021.
2015-2023. To help the WriterAccess business grow, we launched Content Marketing Conference to gather with thought leaders, customers, writers, and fans to learn what’s new and what’s next with content marketing each year. CMC was also acquired by Rock Content in December 2021.
1992-1997. Freelance Access was a graphic art staffing company, our first startup in 1992 that sold to Aquent in 1997. Designers and illustrators were represented by resumes back then. But we changed all that, with smart portfolios
that fast-tracked the screening and hiring process.
2005-2010. Content 6 was a full-service content marketing agency helping clients like Walmart, Best Buy, Salesforce, Iron Mountain, and many more join the content marketing revolution. We retired Content 6 with the launch of WriterAccess in 2010, to better scale writing and optimization services to clients worldwide.
2005-2010. Wordvision was our first Software-as-a-Service business that tracked the impact of the content published on the web: Listing positions, clicks, traffic gains and more. All Content 6 customers subscribed to WordVision, and we retired both brands with the launch of WriterAccess in 2010.
2000-2005. LifeTips initial mission was to make the world a better place, one tip at a time. More than 120,000 tips, 300+ podcasts and 50+ printed books attracted millions of monthly visitors. The online publishing and advertising business struggled during this early web phase, so we retired the business in 2005.
1992-2002. Our founder Byron White battled testicular cancer back in 1992, and with a good sense of humor launched the Lost Ball Golf Tournament that raised more than $100,000 for the Dan Farber over a 10 year time period. Visit LostBall.org to view past invitations that we’ve archived for reference.
1997-2000. Webfish’s mission was to deliver live Maine lobster and smoked salmon direct from dockside to customer’s front door. The tide was a bit low for this early dot com startup, but we learned about the fish industry, ecommerce, shipping, distribution, and fulfillment along the way.
